Town Hall ‘Concerned Citizens’ Are Paid Actors

“Last December, the town council in Camarillo, a small town in southern California, a man called Prince Jordan Tyson stood up and delivered a three minute speech as a “concerned citizen” about a planned construction project before the council.

Tyson is not a concerned citizen of Camarillo: he’s a struggling actor from Beverly Hills, who was paid $100 to deliver a scripted position from the podium while misrepresenting himself as a local, sincere citizen.

Tyson worked for Adam Swart, a recent UCLA grad, who runs a company called ‘Crowds on Demand,’ which hires actors to attend politicians’ campaign meetings, and to deliver scripted dialog in the guise of concerned citizens. Swart says that he has been paid by ‘dozens of campaigns for state officials, and 2016 presidential candidates’ whom he won’t name, because if he did ‘nobody would hire us.'”

–“‘Citizens’ who speak at town meetings are hired, scripted actors,” Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing

More:

“Concerned Citizens Turn Out to Be Political Theater,” Marin Austin, NBC Los Angeles

“There’s a Real Company That Hires Fake Supporters to Cheer on Political Candidates,” Chris Smith, BGR